the road to hell is paved with good intentions
by sophichka
Summary: Her intentions were perfectly innocent, she reasoned, as the slightly sickening feeling of guilt started to settle in the pit of her stomach, so she clutched her cloak slightly tighter around herself, and hurried on. - Ginny/Blaise


Hearing that he had woken up was possibly one of the best feelings she had experienced since she realised that they had won the war. He was one of her closest friends and confidants from that horrific last year, the only one left that she could still talk to.

She had rushed to St Mungo's, yelling at Harry that she was running an errand. It wasn't exactly _lying_, she told herself, she just hadn't elaborated on what the errand was. It wasn't exactly anything to be ashamed of, anyway, it wasn't like she was cheating on Harry, she just wasn't sure he would approve of her visiting someone he never really trusted.

Her intentions were perfectly innocent, she reasoned, as the slightly sickening feeling of guilt started to settle in the pit of her stomach, so she clutched her cloak slightly tighter around herself, and hurried on.

As the nurse let her into the ward the feeling of guilt turned to one of nervousness. It was ridiculous, she chastised herself, to get butterflies about going to see one of her best friends, one of the people she loved most in the world.

He looked older than she remembered, but then again, she hadn't seen him in nearly thirty years. He was still the same handsome Italian she remembered, still the spitting image of his brother. She hugged him, the tears falling down her face. He swiped them away with the pads of his thumbs, rebuking her for her tears.

"Happy tears," she assured him, burying her face into the crook of his neck, marvelling at how he still smelled the same as he did at 18.

She went back repeatedly, telling him stories of the last twenty eight years, her marriage to Harry, Lily's friendship with his niece. His favourite stories were those of Lily, he liked the fact that she was in Slytherin, liked the fact that she was close friends with his brother's branch the Zabini family. He said he should like to meet her, so Ginny agreed, telling herself that it could do no harm.

Lily came to meet Blaise, excited at the prospect of finally meeting the man behind the legends, the stories still told in the Slytherin common room. The two of them got on like a house on fire, and Ginny, watching from a chair in the corner of the room, smiled at the friendship she could see blossoming between the two of them.

It would do Lily some good, she thought, to have an adult she respected and admired in her life, and so she encouraged the relationship wholeheartedly.

Blaise left the hospital, Lily becoming an almost constant guest at his house in the Cotswolds. Ginny was slightly jealous of the way that Lily would go to Blaise instead of her, but she comforted herself in the knowledge that at least Lily was talking to _someone _about her troubles.

Ginny, too, became a regular visitor at Blaise's house. He had never learned to cook, and anything Lily made him would almost certainly poison him, and so Ginny would apperate over every evening, taking him a portion of whatever she had made herself and Harry for dinner. He slowly became to depend on her and Lily, knowing that they would be there in the evening was the only thing that helped him get through the days filled with loneliness and misery.

Ginny came home one day to a furious Harry, waving pictures of her leaving Blaise's house, documents from the hospital that she had had to sign every time she visited him, even a letter from Blaise that he had written to her months ago asking her to go and see him.

Ginny left the house in tears, apperating to Blaise's house, where she screamed and shouted, before finally breaking down in his arms. He told her it was ok, that she'd work things out with Harry, all the while secretly hoping that maybe, _just maybe_, this would be his first lucky break for thirty years.

"I don't want to work things out," she said, tears coursing their salty tracks down her face "I just wish he had never done it! I only wanted to help you and Lily, I wasn't doing anything _wrong_."

"Sometimes, Gin, doing the right thing for one person can mean doing the wrong thing for another."


End file.
